Death Metal Underground

This is a “best of the month” list for this month, but making the title “Best of May 2015” sounds like giving too much of a spotlight for such a short span of time, and devaluating the word “Best of” somewhat, in my opinion. Therefore I chose a title to reflect reality more clearly: these are the only albums we heard of on this website this month that were decent enough to not be considered utter disgraces to the metal genre (those were in the SMRs or were ignored). The “decent” are those that show consistency in style, coherence, a direction and a clear artistic voice and goals. The “rescuable” are those that are still confused in their composition — unclear, or that seemed to be impeded from development by their own approach to music-making (or that of their own genre).

The Decent

Ascended Dead – The Advent review
Blasphemic Cruelty – Crucible of the Infernum review
Exhumation – Opus Death review
Luciferian Rites – When the Light Dies review
Necrophor – Exterminatus review
Nekromanteion – Cosmic Horrors review
Perversor – Anticosmocrator review
Shroud of the Heretic – Unorthodox Equilibrium review
Undead – False Prophecies review

The Rescuable

Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror review
Bureviy – Concealed Beyond the Space review
Dew-Scented – Intermination review
Maruta – Remain Dystopian review
Undergang – Døden Læger Alle Sår review
Wende – Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft review

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Tags: Anticosmocrator, Ascended Dead, best of May, Beyond the Red Mirror, Black Metal, blasphemic cruelty, blind guardian, Bureviy, Concealed Beyond the Space, Cosmic Horrors, Crucible of the Infernum, death metal, Dew-Scented, Doom Metal, Døden Læger Alle Sår, Exhumation, Exterminatus, False Prophecies, Intermination, Luciferian Rites, Maruta, metalcore, Necrophor, Nekromanteion, Opus Death, perversor, Remain Dystopian, Shroud of the Heretic, Speed Metal, The Advent, The decent and the rescuable, Undead, undergang, Unorthodox Equilibrium, Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft, Wende, When the Light Dies

Hailing from Ukraine, Bureviy (Буревій = Hurricane) play a modern take on black metal which makes use of old school sub-styles by keeping them relatively uncontaminated but subsumed under the band’s personal voice. In Concealed Beyond the Space we find the folk-oriented black metal with rock sensibilities of Nokturnal Mortum, the swaying of long melodies of Drudkh, and a collection of strumming, tremolo picking and metal riffing that meld as diverse raw material for a black metal language descended and definitely compatible with but ultimately different from the more uniform black metal of old.

This approach is somewhat of a signature among Eastern European and Québécois black metal bands. The phenomenon is interesting when found in albums that manage to channel this almost faceless style into beautiful and meaningful expression. It demands a stricter attention to musical coherence in composition as the link between musical ideas will not be found in stylistic uniformity. Bureviy even makes use of acoustic guitars to decorate or fill passages that at first may feel like misplaced filler. A closer and paradoxically more comprehensive look also shows these passages are in line with the sections they connect and are not gimmicky interludes but articulations, points of exhalation.

A single spin of this will pass unnoticed. It is like a dense temperate forest, you need to get close and see the trees, the rocks and the streams. It takes more time and familiarity with the album to experience what it is trying to transmit. Ancient Slavic nature-worship and the mystic contemplation in tune with the proud mountains, the warm hillsides and the powerful rivers is channeled through Concealed Beyond the Space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCEuqqGxB9c

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Tags: 2015, Black Metal, Bureviy, Concealed Beyond the Space, drudkh, nokturnal mortum, Québécois, Ukraine

May 2015: The decent and the rescuable

Bureviy – Concealed Beyond the Space (2015)